Cap-and-trade anti-doughnut, baker says

If you live in the St. Louis, MO-area, you should patronize McArthur’s Bakery. Here’s why…

Complaining about the impact of Waxman-Markey on his small business, David McArthur of St. Louis-based McArthur’s Bakery said on Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck show (Eric Bolling sitting in for Glenn Beck) that,

You know, there are physics that say it takes a certain amount of energy to take a dough product to make it into a bread product. And nothing that anyone wants to do to make the world greener is going to change the amount of energy that goes into that.

This tax directly applies to us as well as every other food manufacturer. And so what it is going to do, long term, essentially says, “You haven’t cut back, so we’re going to continue to tax you and tax you more.” That’s a penalty. You know, quite frankly, the only way I can use less energy to bake a loaf of bread is to quit baking it.

Best of all, the bakery took action. McArthur said:

Well, Saturday, two weeks ago, at about 3:00 in the afternoon, I went to our reader board. We’ve got one of those nice reader board signs on our location. Out front, and I typed “Russ Carnahan voted to close us and other small business.” It was just in sheer – just aggravation, just fed up with it.

What is your business doing to fight Waxman-Markey?

Here’s Part 1 of the interview:

Here’s Part 2 of the interview:

Kaptur gets $3.5 billion for W-M vote

Toledo Rep. Marcy Kaptur received $3.5 billion to vote for the Waxman-Markey bill. As reported by the Washington Times,

When House Democratic leaders were rounding up votes Friday for the massive climate-change bill, they paid special attention to their colleagues from Ohio who remained stubbornly undecided.

They finally secured the vote of one Ohioan, veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo, the old-fashioned way. They gave her what she wanted – a new federal power authority, similar to Washington state’s Bonneville Power Administration, stocked with up to $3.5 billion in taxpayer money available for lending to renewable energy and economic development projects in Ohio and other Midwestern states.

To paraphrase James Carville,

Drag a $3.5 billion bribe through the halls of Congress and there’s no telling what you’ll find.

Every pol has a price: Marcy Kaptur agreed to snuggle with Henry Waxman for $3.5 billion.
Every pol has a price: Marcy Kaptur agreed to snuggle with Henry Waxman for $3.5 billion

While some say that Waxman-Markey will never pass the Senate because of economic considerations, remember we said that:

  • Every politician has his price; and
  • President Obama is printing money like there’s no tomorrow.

Make sure Senators know that a vote for Waxman-Markey (or whatever bill the Senate develops) is a vote against their reelection — apparently the only price that they can’t afford.

Obama stimulus slows renewable projects

President Obama’s stimulus package is slowing the development of so-called “renewable energy” projects as developers shun private capital in hopes of getting better deals from the government.

The problem is that,

None of these incentives has yet been defined with specific rules and none of the programs are yet accepting applications…

And the rentseekers aren’t happy.

Matt Cheney, chief executive of Renewable Ventures, the U.S. subsidiary of Fotowatio SL, a Spanish developer of renewable-energy projects said of Obama’s stimulus program,

“It artificially slowed the recovery.”

Keshav Prasad, vice president of business development at Signet Solar Inc. added,

“We will not close on anything until we finally hear from the DOE on the loan guarantee.”

Bureaucracy thwarts rentseeking!

Senate version of Waxman-Markey imminent

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is “days” away from releasing a Senate version of the Waxman-Markey bill that just passed the House, according to Carbon Control News.

Based on comments from Sen. John Kerry made at a July 8 hearing, the Senate version will “revise” [read “water down”] the Waxman-Markey imposition of tariffs on goods from countries that don’t reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Click here for a new GAO report on trade options for climate legislation.

Unions won’t be happy about a retreat on tariffs…

De-desalination: Greens oppose Calif. plans

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

Early next year, the Southern California town of Carlsbad will break ground on a plant that each day will turn 50 million gallons of seawater into fresh drinking water…

Government agencies have opposed desalination because of the process’s energy consumption. The desalination plant would use nearly twice as much energy as a wastewater-treatment plant available in Orange County. Environmental groups also object because fish and other organisms are likely to be sucked into the facility.

“Eventually, people will have to realize, it’s either fish or children,” Mr. Lewis said…

Officials in Carlsbad began discussing desalination in 1998 and planned to open the plant this year. But opposition was fierce.

The Surfrider Foundation and San Diego Coastkeeper — two local environmental groups — argue the plant would be disastrous for marine life, “killing everything that floats” near the plant’s intake, said Surfrider’s Joe Geever.

The permitting process continued for six years, and included 14 public hearings that ran a total of 170 hours and included five revisions to the plan…

Pickens scraps wind scam

“In a sign of the difficulties facing the development of wind energy, T. Boone Pickens, the legendary Texas oilman, is suspending plans to build the world’s largest wind farm,” reports reports the New York Times.

We are proud to have helped expose the Pickens Plan for the scam that it was.

This is quite the embarrassing legacy for the “legendary Texas oilman.”

Goldman Sachs to be carbon regulator?

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Olympia Snow (RINO-ME) have introduced a bill to make the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the sole regulator of the carbon market created by cap-and-trade legislation.

So does this mean that freebooting Goldman Sachs could be the de facto regulator of the carbon market?

Consider that:

  • The current chairman of the CFTC is Gary Gensler, formerly of Goldman Sachs.
  • Goldman Sachs is a part owner of the exchanges where carbon allowances would be traded.
  • Goldman Sachs has spent millions of dollars lobbying for cap-and-trade legislation in anticipation of making billions of dollars at the expense taxpayers and consumers.
  • Goldman has a special exemption from the CFTC to exceed the trading limits normally placed on commodity speculators. Not only was this exemption secret for 17 years, the CFTC recently had to ask Goldman for permission to release the letter to Congress!
  • Goldman Sachs employees are heavy contributors to the Democratic Party giving it over $4.4. million in the last election. Barack Obama received more than $997,000, Feinstein received $24,250, and Snowe received $17,000 from Goldman. All-in-all, this could result in a pretty decent return-on-investment for Goldman.

As the global warming bubble inflates and then bursts, will Goldman Sachs self-regulate all the way to the bank… making record profits at the expense and misery of taxpayers and consumers?

Can you tell the difference between the CFTC and Goldman Sachs?

Gary Gensler, CFTC Chairman
Gary Gensler, CFTC Chairman
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Chairman
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Chairman

EPA pressuring utilities to switch out of coal

EPA officials have suggested to Kansas environmental officials that integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology be considered as “best available control technology” for the controversial coal-fired Holcomb Power Plant proposed to be built by Sunflower Electric Power Corp.

But this is a thinly-veiled effort by the EPA to apply pressure against the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

IGCC, which involves turning coal into gas before combustion, is an expensive and a not-ready-for-prime-time technology that could force utilities simply to opt out of coal and into natural gas.

An industry source told Carbon Control News,

“If IGCC is going to be considered BACT for coal generation, then you might as well throw in natural gas as well because in both cases you’re using entirely different forms of generation to achieve lower emissions.”

BACT is the EPA standard that must be met for new sources of air emissions.

Inhofe to Boxer: Hold hearings on actual bill

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) wrote to Senate Environment and Public Works chairman Barbara Boxer demanding that the Senate hold hearings on the specific provisions of a climate bill rather than on general climaterrata:

Inhofe wrote,

…our constituents have a right to know specifically how this legislation will affect them and this requires hearings on the specific legislation and provisions we will consider.

Click here for the release and letter.

Ethanol: A harmful waste of money

In this Wall Street Journal op-ed “So Much for energy Independence,” Robert Bryce notes that,

The U.S. gets about 98 times as much energy from natural gas and oil as it does from ethanol and biofuels. And measured on a per-unit-of-energy basis, Congress lavishes ethanol and biofuels with subsidies that are 190 times as large as those given to oil and gas.

Bryce also notes that ethanol may be causing damage to engines:

In January, Toyota announced that it was recalling 214,570 Lexus vehicles. The reason: The company found that “ethanol fuels with a low moisture content will corrode the internal surface of the fuel rails.” (The rails carry fuel to the engine injectors.) Furthermore, there have been numerous media reports that ethanol-blended gasoline is fouling engines in lawn mowers, weed whackers and boats.

Lawyers in Florida have already sued a group of oil companies for damage allegedly done to boat fuel tanks and engines from ethanol fuel. They are claiming that consumers should be warned about the risk of using the fuel in their boats.

Then there’s the food problem:

There is also corn ethanol’s effect on food prices. Over the past two years at least a dozen studies have linked subsidies that have increased the production of corn ethanol with higher food prices.

Finally, Bryce observes:

Mr. Obama has been pro-ethanol and anti-oil for years. But he and his allies on Capitol Hill should understand that removing drilling incentives will mean less drilling, which will mean less domestic production and more imports of both oil and natural gas.

That’s hardly a recipe for “energy independence.”

Senate Surprise: EPA Administrator More Honest Than Energy Secretary in Climate Hearing

At today’s Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on carbon control, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) showed EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and Energy Secretary Steven Chu a chart depicting the extremely limited impact on atmospheric CO2 concentrations that would result from unilateral action on emissions by the US. The chart had been developed by the EPA for last year’s Warner-Lieberman bill.

When Inhofe asked Chu if he agreed with the chart — i.e., whether unilateral US action would have only a negligible impact on the CO2 level — Chu said he disagreed.

When Jackson got her turn to comment on the chart, she essentially agreed that the chart was correct and unilateral US action would accomplish little.

I guess Chu didn’t win his Nobel for honesty.

Here’s the video:

More GE Welfare Queen…

“Unable to Unload Limping Divisions, GE Invests in Propping Them Up” is the headline of this article in today’s Wall Street Journal.

If you the read the article, however, you’ll find that it is actually taxpayers that are doing the propping:

In the appliance division [which GE tried unsuccessfully to sell], GE’s union of 2,100 hourly workers in Louisville voted in May to freeze wages as part of GE’s agreement to build energy-efficient hot-water heaters in Louisville. GE also is getting $17 million in government incentives. It hopes the products will open markets and inject new life into GE’s appliance business.

[The chief of GE’s lighting-and-applicance group] believes there is still an outside chance GE might decide to hang on to the units, especially in light of the subsidies and tax breaks the Obama administration is doling out for energy efficiency.

More on GE’s Welfare Queen business strategy: